Suimeikan” brings healing to Gero

Gero Onsen, located in central Gifu Prefecture, was founded in the Heian period (794-1185) and was introduced by Hayashi Razan, a well-known Confucian scholar who served four shoguns, starting with Tokugawa Ieyasu, as one of the three best springs in Japan along with Arima and Kusatsu. The famous hot spring, which was visited by warlords such as Nobunaga Oda to heal battle wounds, became well known when it was introduced in Hayashi Razan’s book, and by the Edo period (1603-1867), it was visited by 30,000 hot-spring cures a year. With the opening of Gero Station on the JR Takayama Line in 1930, it became accessible from various directions by Shinkansen bullet trains to Nagoya or Toyama, and from there by limited express or local trains. The transportation infrastructure, including a direct bus service from Nagoya, has been improved, and the area has further developed as a hot spring resort. The slightly high alkaline simple hot spring is said to be colorless, clear, thick, and smooth on the skin, making it suitable for beauty and health promotion.

Suimeikan, which opened in Gero City, Gifu Prefecture, in 1932, is the representative ryokan of Gero Onsen. On its vast grounds of 10,000 square meters, the ryokan has three pavilions (Sansuikaku, Tobisenkaku, and Rinkawakaku), an indoor hot spring pool, and a gymnasium, and a total of 264 guest rooms. Each pavilion has three large baths : an open-air bath surrounded by greenery and huge rocks, a 24-hour bath overlooking the city, and a cypress-scented bath called “Shimodome-no-yu,” allowing guests to enjoy a variety of bathing experiences. Of course, private baths are also available for guests to relax and enjoy the famous hot spring water. The museum also has a large collection of works of high artistic value, including tile murals by living national treasure potter Takuo Kato and paintings by master artist Taikan Yokoyama, which are also highlights of the museum. A Noh stage supervised by the late Shoroku Sekine, a Noh performer of the Kanze school, one of the schools of Noh theater, is also located in the hotel, and visitors will be able to rediscover the charm of Japanese beauty through the elegance of this 90-year old ryokan.

Enjoy Japanese cuisine and architecture

Traditional Japanese cuisine based on the five tastes, five colors, and five directions can be enjoyed at the ryokan. The cuisine is based on the five tastes, five colors, and five ways of cooking. Chef Shingo Ikeda, who studied at Kyoto Cuisine Hanakagami, brings out the best of local seasonal ingredients such as fresh vegetables from farmers in partnership with the restaurant. Sommelier Takao Kani, who is also the head of the Gifu branch of the Japan Sommelier Association, selects wines to match the cuisine of the day, which will further enhance the flavors of both the food and the sake.

Seiranso,” a five-room detached house in the sukiya style, offers a peaceful and tranquil setting in which guests can look out over the well-kept Japanese garden and experience the changing of the seasons. The rooms are decorated with summer tatami mats and yoshizu, snow tatami mats and yukimi-shoji screens to match the changing of the seasons. The rooms on the first floor, Aoi no Ma and Yugao no Ma, are equipped with an open-air bath with natural hot spring water that allows you to enjoy the night sky all to yourself. In addition, the chef at “Seiranso” prepares special menus using ingredients carefully selected on the day. Here, too, the ultimate luxury awaits you, and this will be the moment when you will feel the greatest satisfaction in having chosen this inn.

The scale of the inn is said to be the largest in the Tokai region, and the hospitality that goes into every detail will surely add a page of satisfaction to your travel album.

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Rice, the Staple Food of the Japanese

Although it is said that the shift away from rice has been progressing along with the westernization of food, rice has always been the staple food of the Japanese people. It is a natural part of every household and convenience store in Japan. However, few people know the history of rice. Although there are various theories, rice cultivation began in Japan about 3,000 years ago during the Jomon period. Rice was introduced from the Eurasian continent along with rice cultivation technology, and before the Meiji period (1868-1912), rice was collected as a tax, indicating that it has remained the most familiar food in Japanese daily life. There are three types of rice produced in the world: japonica rice, which is well-known in Japan and widely enjoyed as a staple food on the Korean Peninsula; indica rice, which is long and thin and often seen in Thai cuisine; and javanica rice, which is wide and large-grained, sticky but light, and used for paella and risotto. The other is “Javanica rice,” which is wide, large-grained, sticky, but light, and used in paella and risotto. Indica rice, which accounts for more than 80% of the rice produced in the world, is not widely produced in Japan, and japonica rice, with its short grain and stickiness, is preferred by many Japanese. Among these, Koshihikari, a variety registered in 1956, is produced in one-third of all rice paddies in Japan and has become the standard for what the average Japanese person considers rice.

Birth of “Ryu no Hitomi,” a rice with great potential

In 2000, Takashi Imai, then working for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, was inspecting Koshihikari rice fields in Gero City, Gifu Prefecture, to check the growth of the rice plants when he noticed something unusual. There was tall rice mixed in that was clearly not Koshihikari, and upon closer inspection, the paddy was quite large.” The next year, he grew the hulled rice, harvested it, and cooked it. It had a sweetness, aroma, and crunchiness that he had never experienced before, and Mr. Imai was shocked to find that it overturned his concept of rice. Thinking that this rice must be a new variety, Mr. Imai asked a company specializing in genetic testing, but they were unable to analyze it and could not tell him what the origin of the rice was. However, he was convinced that it was clearly a different variety from Koshihikari. In 2002, he conducted test cultivation in secret to register the variety, finalized the data, and filed an application for variety registration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on April 1, 2003. The name of the variety at the time of application was ” Ryu no Hitomi. We wanted to name it “Dragon,” the god of water, which is important for rice cultivation. He also made the large grains of rice look like “pupils. At the same time, “Ryu no Hitomi” was needed as a product name to establish a brand strategy, and an application for trademark registration as “Ryu no Hitomi” was filed with the Japan Patent Office and was accepted. In 2006, the rice was successfully registered as a variety, and it became more popular as a tasty and safe rice. In 2006, the rice was successfully registered as a variety, and the company set out to grow and protect it as a tastier and safer rice. However, it was extremely difficult to grow because of its tall stature and large ears, which made it prone to collapse and vulnerable to disease. Therefore, Mr. Imai retired from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries at the age of 51 in order to protect this unknown but potentially extraordinarily large rice and preserve it for future generations. Wanting to produce rice that everyone could enjoy and eat safely, he gathered together a group of friends who aspired to become masters of rice cultivation and devoted themselves to cultivating and promoting “Ryu no Hitomi” rice.

He has created strict standards for “Ryu no Hitomi,” and only contract farmers who meet these standards are allowed to grow the rice under a set manual, thereby protecting and enhancing the brand value of “Ryu no Hitomi. In order to maintain the quality of “Dragon’s Eyes,” they also focus on the management of “Inochi no Ichi,” the original seed rice. Thanks to such activities, not only Mr. Imai himself but also his contract farmers have won gold medals in the National Rice Evaluation and Taste Analysis Contest and the Grand Prize in the You Choose the Best Rice in Japan Contest, as well as many other top awards in national contests. It is now recognized by rice growers and rice lovers as a representative brand of rice in Japan.

Protecting Japanese Rice with “Dragon’s Eyes

Mr. Imai is concerned that Japanese rice consumption has continued to decline since its peak of approximately 118 kg per year in 1962, and is now less than half that amount. Even though those were the days when people were mainly engaged in manual labor and ate hinomaru bento (packed lunches), I think many people ate rice because rice grown in the traditional way was simply delicious. So I want to produce delicious rice without using as much pesticide as possible and increase the number of people who want to eat this again, ” he says. In 2017, he obtained Global GAP certification to ensure that his rice is safe and secure and evaluated at the global level. Such safe and secure rice can be made more delicious by cooking it in an appropriate way depending on the season. Dragon’s Eye,” which appeared like a blessing from heaven and which Mr. Imai has devoted his life and passion to protect, will be a light that will awaken the Japanese people’s love for rice, which had been far away, and make them recognize once again that Japanese rice farming is a wonderful technique to be proud of in the world and a culture to be inherited.

The post Dragon’s Eyes: Mr. Takashi Imai, a man who will leave behind rice that is 1.5 times larger in grain than Koshihikari and was given to him from the heavens. first appeared on NIHONMONO.

Growing Phantom Rice in the Terraced Rice Paddies of Omayano

Gero Onsen in Gifu Prefecture is known as one of the three best hot springs in Japan, along with Arima Onsen in Hyogo Prefecture and Kusatsu Onsen in Gunma Prefecture. The Mimayano terraced rice paddies spread out on a slope at an altitude of around 600 meters, about 10 kilometers from the hot spring resort. The sight of rice paddies lined up on steps along the curves of the terrain, which is unique to mountainous regions, is a work of art that makes the most of nature and is a crystallization of the wisdom and efforts of our ancestors. The terraced rice paddies not only produce high quality rice due to the difference in temperature and the long hours of sunlight characteristic of mountainous regions, but also have various functions, such as preventing landslides and floods and allowing rainwater that seeps underground to be reused downstream, thus protecting the lives of people living in the surrounding areas for many years. However, terraced rice paddies are cultivated in the mountains, so the area per rice paddy is small, and the farm roads are not well maintained, making it impossible to use large machinery. The existence of terraced rice paddies has become a precious commodity in itself, as the aging of the rice growers and the lack of successors have led to an increase in abandoned rice paddies.

What is “Gin no Hikari,” the world’s highest rated rice?

Inochinoichi ” is a rice variety that was accidentally discovered in this region in 2000. It has a unique texture with grains about 1.5 times the size of Koshihikari rice. It is also attractive because of its strong flavor and sweetness, not only when it is freshly cooked, but also when it is cooled down, as it does not become hard and the flavor is concentrated even further, and the flavor continues to be delicious on rice balls or in lunch boxes. It was first sold under the brand name “Ryu no Hitomi,” and its production areas expanded. Since 2013, Mr. Yasuhiro Soga of Manmaruya LLC has been producing “Gin-no-Mikazuki,” a brand of rice produced in the Hida region of Gifu Prefecture and surrounding mountainous areas blessed with rich soil and clean water, with his colleagues. Mr. Yasuhiro Soga of “Manmaruya, LLC. In an environment where mineral-rich water through the mountains creates good soil and grows good rice, he spares no pains to keep the rice tasty by installing the latest equipment to make it even tastier. At Mr. Soga’s farm, a dryer with AI functions has been installed, and harvested rice is sorted and managed in optimal conditions, with rice harvested with different moisture content being agitated and sorted, and drying automatically adjusted to the moisture content of each rice. My wife is aghast, saying, “You bought a new one again! Soga laughs as he strokes the combine harvester equipped with the latest functions. The Silver Soma rice grown through trial and error won the gold medal in the specially grown rice category for two consecutive years in the “Rice and Taste Analysis Competition,” which is said to be the largest rice competition held in Japan. The company has also been recognized throughout Japan as the “World’s Best Rice,” a distinction given to only four people in Japan who have been carefully selected by Toyo Rice from among the gold medal-winning brown rice in the competition. The brown rice selected as the world’s best rice was purchased for 1,900 yen per kilogram, about eight times the regular price, and 840 grams (6 cups) was sold to the public for 18,000 yen (including consumption tax and shipping costs). Because of its extremely low distribution volume, it has gained a reputation among food connoisseurs as a “phantom rice.

The Silver Cherry” is a special product of Mr. Soga.

Mr. Soga places great importance on using as little pesticides as possible, no chemical fertilizers, and only original organic fertilizers that meet his own standards. He relies on his accumulated data and long-standing instincts to deal with changes in temperature and rainfall caused by abnormal weather, and he treats the silver sesame as if he were raising his own children. After harvest, the rice is stored in a warehouse at a constant temperature to keep it alive and un-hulled so that it is less susceptible to environmental conditions such as dryness, cold, and heat. This is because rice that is protected by the husks and retains its vitality can retain its fresh taste for a long time. The amount of rice that can be shipped is not very large because the cultivation area is limited and there are no workers. That is why we want to deliver the best rice possible to customers who are waiting for it,” says Soga.

The fact that rice produced in the traditional way, in the traditional place, is gaining public recognition seems to appeal to the legitimacy of preserving the original landscape of Japan and passing it on to future generations. And no matter how tasty the rice is, Mr. Soga leaves no room for miscellaneous thoughts, saying, “There is no such thing as good enough. Under Mr. Soga’s leadership, the future of rice farming in Japan is being carefully spun out.

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The post Phantom rice produced from the original landscape of Japan, Manmaruya, Yasuhiro Soga / Gero City, Gifu Prefecture first appeared on NIHONMONO.